My Political Friends

I want to start this post, by saying that it's not about one friend, it's about a lot of friends. It's certainly about all of my American Friends. But in particular, it's to the friends who share their political thoughts. Not just now. Not just this year; but always -- as long as I've known them. It's a thank you to my friends who study political science. It's a thank you to my friends who make non-personal attacks on my posts. It's a thank you to my friends who are bipartisan die-hards (Hi there Brian and David!) and to my friends who are even further extreme than their political parties are willing to go at the moment (Hi Rachael and Alli!) It's a thank you to mission companions who would talk to me so late into the night that we'd be late to meetings the next day. It's a thank you to my libertarian friends who question the government in all of its forms (Hi Jason and Grant!). It's a thank you to friends who are supporting "minor" candidates loudly (Hi Venna, Trent, and Ashley!). And finally, it is a thank you to parents who never so stupid as to tell me that you can't talk politics or religion with people and more importantly taught me how to do both in an intelligent way -- because it can be done, even on Facebook.

I think I've become smarter because of my friends, and really that's all you can ask for. For some friends, I'm not smart enough. For others, I'm too far one way or the other. To me, these are all good signs that I have good friends willing to share thoughts with me, and that I'm trying to learn more. I think of myself as pretty moderate politically, and while I don't have a perfect answer for many things, I think that most of the time, we get given a false binary to choose from.

"DO YOU STAND WITH US AND CHANGE OR DO YOU ACT LIKE A HEATHEN THAT YOU ARE?!"

"Either you vote for allowing whatever socially or you're a bigot!"

"Kaep is either American, or a terrorist!"

As if all those are mutual exclusives.

I hate that. I hated it during my time in school. I hated it during the primaries. I hate it when it's presented as an option on facebook quizzes (yes, I love Jesus, no I'm not sharing your post and typing AMEN) and I hate it right now. So very much. I hate the idea that we're being force-fed Trump or Clinton who are so alike it is almost scary. I mean when you really come down to it, on my "I side with" score, they were about 7% apart. That's it. And the rest of it is unknowns and media propaganda and spin control. Clinton won't raise her voice or say brash things (except calling Americans bigots who should be put in a basket or something) because her narrative is that she isn't Trump, and Trump says everything on his mind so that he can't be accused of not sharing his view of the truth like Clinton.

I thought for a long time that I might vote Gary Johnson. He's anti-big government, he's a decent human, and he's not one of the others! But honestly, I'm not fully invested in him either. But someone's going to win, right? We hear all the time about how it's our moral obligation to vote our conscience or to vote for one of the two who is closest because it would be unethical to vote against your second choice and let your last choice win. Right? It's both. You can find arguments for any side thanks to the internet.

But for me, I started thinking. We say our political system is broken, and I think it is. But what is the fix? Is it getting another party into a Broken system? Is it not voting to send a message? Is it voting to send a message?  No. I think we need to learn from something where we can look at results (because we want to think about the results from our president) and vote that way. We want something that's proven to (usually) be a good measure of who is actually the best?

How about the NBA MVP?

Everyone sees the same games, reads the same stuff, knows the same stats. And the results usually yield the right thing.


So I thought about this election a lot. The thing I thought about in the primaries was that we needed a way to represent people who are torn between candidates. Like, with NBA MVP Voting, you do a top 5 (see the link) and you get points for each vote (10 for first, 8 for second, etc.). Now with this year's vote, it was amazing to see a Unanimous MVP win. Everyone put Steph Curry first. Every single person. Clear representation. But the other votes were a little mixed so you could see where things stood out. On the fringe, you had guys getting a few fifth/fourth place votes like Kyle Lowrey for the NBA. Guys talk about what an honor it is just to be mentioned in the conversation. It's a big deal! You're a top five guy!
But if it wasn't that way, we'd still get someone. One year it was REALLY close between Shaq and Nash. Maybe those aren't the best two candidates ever, but it was close. Some years there are multiple good options, but either way, but having a spread vote, you get a better representation of what's really out there.

Now imagine how this might have worked in the primaries. I get the feeling that not a lot of people were really torn between Trump and someone else. Maybe initially, but by the time Primaries were happening you could say something like "Man, I like Rubio, Cruz, Paul, Fiorina and Bush all about the same, but not trump!" Then you could give a proper representation not only to the person you like most (BUSH!) and the person you really don't want to be represented (TRUMP!) or whatever.
Same thing on the left. Superdelegates are a joke for a party, that claims to represent the people but they exist, and so does money so I imagine they go nowhere. So what if people could put their first choice (SANDERS!) and then some fake ones (OBAMA 2.0, Deez Nuts, Mickey Mouse) and then Hillary gets zero of their vote. Right? Amazing things could happen! or if you're fine with both, go (Bernie, Hillary, Jill) whoever. Right?

But this ends on a national level, right? I say no.

What if it didn't? Right now, we have 5 candidates, amazingly, getting 1% or more of the vote. 5. What if you could say your votes were McMullin, Johnson, Clinton, Stein, Trump? Wouldn't that be a MUCH more effective way? We'd see on every ballot either Trump or Clinton. Everyone. And you mean that wouldn't send a message to party leaders? That it might not have a chance to make a difference? Even if you drop that number to 3 and you go "I'd only ever vote Hillary, Stein, Johnson" or "McMullin, Johnson, Clinton" or whatever, isn't that a better representation?


And what if that could even include negative votes. How many people would go out to literally vote against Clinton or Trump? Tons. And that would actually represent us well. Keep the electoral college. Keep whatever else. But people are motivated so much more by stopping what they don't like and giving a nuanced answer that shows their actual thinking than a canned yes or no that in 40/50 states doesn't matter anyway because of the current system.
Maybe there are reasons we don't do negative votes, but at least the other aspects are worth considering, right?


And let me add one last thing. Let's imagine for a second that we had a candidate that was really truly represented our wants and needs as a people. That candidate could go all steps curry and take it to the house. Or the opposite could happen. The person with the most 1st place votes could also be reviled and then it would be a person who was 2nd for a lot of people, but wasn't reviled by anyone. Everyone would go "Well, at least it wasn't _____." Right?

Can anyone explain to me why this is a bad idea? Poly-sci friends? Non-Americans? Other than 2-party die-hards (and I care about your thoughts, too) Explain to me how this is somehow not a better representation of our actual feelings on things and a way to represent the best candidates our country could give us? I think it would either break the two party system or force the two major parties to listen to their bases better.


For what it's worth, this post was inspired by my friend Emily asking me to check facebook and see how many friends I had who liked the major political candidates. The results are below:


"Real Candidates"
Trump: 23
Hillary: 17
Gary Johnson 47
McMullin 35
Jill Stein 3

And just for funsies:


Ted Cruz 16
John Kasich 14
Rand Paul 9
Martin O. 1
Carly F. 9
Marco Rubio 17
Huckabee 7
Jeb Bush 2
Bernie Sanders 27
Scott Walker 2
Ben Carson 58
Mitt Romney 288
Jim Web 0


Skewed by Mormons? Sure.

But their overall numbers are like this:

Trump 10.9 M
Clinton 6.6 M (telling)
Evan M. 44K (telling)
Johnson 1.6 M
Stein 100K
Mitt Romney 10.5 M
Bernie 4.5 M (wonder if he was higher than Clinton before the primaries)
Rubio 1.4 M
Martin O'Malley 114K
Carly F. 600k (Surprising she wasn't better represented in the debates, no?)
Ben Carson 5.5M
Ted Cruz 2.1M
Mike Huckabee 2.1 M
Kasich 288 K
Rand Paul 2.1 M
(and his dad is 1.4 M and 17 friends)
Scott Walker 358K
Bush 340 K
Jim Webb 50k


Facebook isn't a perfect representation for a lot of reasons. I get that. But what this says to me is that there are other people we'd talk about "if they had a chance." What if Bernie was on that stage with Hillary and Trump?

What if the stage was the top 5 most popular politicans in America?

If we had Bernie (far left) Clinton (Moderate Left) Romney(Moderate right) Carson (far right, religious) and Trump (far right umm... far?) imagine how different this would be.

Or pick your top 5. Isn't the idea of democracy that more minds makes better options?  Guys? Guys?